Recent research showing young people in New Zealand are more likely to die on the roads than young Australians has again raised questions about whether Kiwis have a driving problem. 1News takes a closer look at the issue.
As the saying goes, New Zealanders are generally nice people – until you put them behind the wheel of a car.
A casual Google search of New Zealand driving habits reveals tales of aggressive tailgating, stubborn refusals to merge like a zip, and dangerous overtaking manoeuvres to get ahead of one car in a queue of traffic.
Many New Zealanders don’t respect driving, says four-time Bathurst 1000 champion and road safety advocate Greg Murphy.
“We are very impatient a lot of the time,” he said.
The owner of a trucking company has praised the fast reflexes of one of his drivers, after he narrowly avoided a serious crash. (Source: Supplied) (Source: Supplied)
“You go to other countries and people are more willing to let you in when you’re merging; we’ll fill a gap so someone can’t get in – we can be pretty terrible in that respect.”
New Zealand’s driving culture has manifested through having such a simplistic system to earning the right to drive, Murphy said.
“We don’t respect driving enough and it’s because we get it so goddam easy, really – to get a licence is so simplistic,” he said.
“We’re not learning through the process and that’s generated this … ‘it’s my God given right’ kind of thing to drive and that’s just manifested over the decades because our system has been the way it is.”
Sorry statistics
New Zealand has not had much to boast about when it comes to road safety.
An International Traffic Safety Data and Analysis Group (IRTAD) comparison of countries’ data last year showed New Zealand had the seventh highest number of road fatalities per 100,000 people, sitting behind Colombia, Costa Rica, the US, Chile, Argentina, and Serbia.
That same report revealed our young people were the most at risk on the roads with a mortality rate well above average.
A new study released by the AA Research Foundation last week backed up those statistics, showing New Zealanders aged 18 to 24 were nearly three times more likely to die on roads than their Australian counterparts.
The Automobile Association is calling for changes to how we prepare novice drivers for our roads. (Source: Breakfast)
Do we need to change how we learn to drive?
The AA Research Foundation said the country’s driver licensing system needed addressing to tackle those statistics.
The foundation’s manager, Dylan Thomsen, told Breakfast last week New Zealand could be doing more to prepare novice drivers.
“We think licensing should be looked at as a key component of the upcoming road safety plan. We’re not saying it needs a total overhaul, but there’s no harm in looking for areas where we could do better,” he said.
“The licensing system is about making sure people are equipped with the skills and knowledge to be safe on the road and investigating potential ways to improve the scheme is a no-brainer.”
Murphy agrees.
“We need to prepare people better, so they actually have a better understanding around the risks and understand vehicles a little bit better and understand the tools they’ve got at their disposal,” he said.
“Having a licence makes you legal [to drive] – it’s not making you safe.
“We put kids aged 16,17, 18 In cars on the road with basically no training – just the ability to operate a motor vehicle, but not in a safe way. So, we’re putting them at risk, but at the same time [we’re] putting other people at risk and we continue to accept that that’s OK.”
Murphy said driving should make up a larger part of the high school curriculum for a start.
“Start the learning process while at school,” he said. “It’s literally a life skill and if you don’t have the right amount of skills, then you put yourself and other people at risk very, very easily and very quickly.”
Learning to become a better driver isn’t something that’s done theoretically, Murphy said, which is why he’s been calling for driver training facilities, similar to those run through the Street Smart programme he helped found.
“We should have training facilities all over the country, just big pieces of asphalt that can be used for all sorts of training – teaching bus drivers, teaching truck drivers, teaching everybody.”
And that education shouldn’t stop once someone gets their driver’s licence, Murphy said.
“We should all be forced into doing something to maintain our licences,” he said, adding that could look like a competency course drivers had to do every six or eight years.
Cars and their related technology have changed a lot since many older New Zealanders sat their licence, Murphy said.
“If you’ve got a tool in your car that might have been able to change the outcome [of a crash], but you didn’t know anything about it, and you end up having a much more serious crash, what’s the point in having that [tool]?”
Beyond driving lessons
Police will only get some of the funding if they hit targets on offences issued. (Source: 1News)
But the way we learn to drive is just one of the reasons New Zealand’s record on the roads is so poor, Murphy said.
“We’ve still got this drink driving culture, which is so damaging, and now people driving drugged too,” he said.
The Government revealed a new $1.335 billion police programme earlier this month that included more testing for drunk and drugged drivers.
“We’ve got to get back into having people thinking twice about having a drink and driving, because it’s still a real blight on our existence in this country,” Murphy said.
He said penalties for other driving offences also needed to be looked at.
The fines for things like using a mobile phone while driving needed to become “almost draconian” to stem the levels of distraction, he said.
“I don’t have a problem if [the fine] was $1000 – at the moment it’s $150.
“Penalties for breaking the law are pathetic in this country so people aren’t worried about that.”
Murphy said more needs to be done to make New Zealand better drivers, as spending money on things like road barriers won’t save everyone.
“We need to do something; we need to make a change,” he said.
“We have to do this and make a priority out of it … considering the statistics that we have. It never ceases to amaze me that this just gets forgotten about or gets pushed to one side and nothing happens.”